A Tale of Two Detectives
by WhiteRose93
Summary: Artemis Kudo is a female teenage detective and she is ready to start investigating the Kira case. Will she find love or end up another victim? LxOCxLight
1. Chapter 1

A Tale of Two Detectives L Lawliet story

Chapter 1: Entering the Fray

A young girl about the age of 16 was sitting on a subway train staring out the grimy window. Her dark reddish-brown eyes watched the dark world on the other side of the glass. She ran a hand through her long brown hair and sighed. The train stopped and a voice came over the loudspeakers. "We have now reached Tokyo. Have a good day." The girl stepped on to the busy platform. She sighed again. "Well, no turning back now."

She made her way toward the Tokyo Police Station. Her eyes watched the clouds as she thought about what to say. She began to play with the hem of her school skirt. A nervous habit that she picked up a few years ago. She soon found herself standing at the entrance of the police station.

"Okay. All I have to do is go in and find out where the team is investigating. No big deal…" she said, looking into the building sweat gathering on her brow. She took a deep breath and pushed open the doors.

The man behind the desk glanced up at her before returning to his work. The young woman calmly walked past him and down the hallway that was normally off limits to civilians. It took the man a few moments to notice where she was heading. "Hey! You aren't allowed back there! Come back!" he shouted at her slender form. He began to walk swiftly after her. She stiffened for a moment before continuing quickly.

She came to a stop outside a door that contained a lot of chaos. She lingered for a second before her sharp ears picked up the one word she was looking for. She gripped the doorknob tightly and took a deep breath before opening the door. Well…more like slamming it open…the poor door was almost ripped off its hinges.

The whole room fell into a silence as all eyes landed on the new comer. No one spoke until the girl said, "Is this the Kira investigation team?" The room then became tense.

"You shouldn't be here little girl. This is a grown-ups job." A young cop, near the back of the room, said as if he were speaking to a 5-year-old.

The teen gave a visible twitch. Her fists clenched at her side. Her pretty brown/red eyes narrowed into thin slits. "Do you have any idea who I am?" she asked in a deadly calm voice.

Before the cop or the girl could say anything else a man from the back called out, "Arty? Is that you?"

The young girl tore her eyes from the idiot in front of her to stare at the aging man. "Chief Yagami? It is you! It's been a while, hasn't it?" She answered.

The man smiled and hugged the girl. "It has been too long indeed, Artemis. It's good to see you again, but what are you doing here?"

"Well-" Again, the same cop coughsexistcough interrupted.

"Chief, who is this kid? And why haven't you kicked her out yet?"

She gave another violent twitch before turning to face everyone in the room. "My name is Artemis Kudo, teenage detective for the Okinawa police force. I have solved cases all over Japan, China, the Philippines, and America. The Okinawa Chief of Police and the Mayor sent me here to aid you in this case. It looks like you'll be needing me, seeing as you don't even have any suspects yet…"

The policemen gave a collective gasp. Whispers could be heard coming from every direction. _Is that really the famous Artemis Kudo? I thought she was a guy. Isn't she too young to be a detective? I thought this was a man's job…_

A cough sounded throughout the room causing everyone to stop talking mid-sentence and look at a laptop computer toward the back of the room. The only thing on the screen was an elegant L.

"_It was very nice of you to join us, Ms. Kudo. I was wondering if you were going to come or not." _A mixed voice sounded from laptop's speakers.

Artemis stared at the screen for a moment before binding over to look into the webcam. "So, L is at the other end of this connection, huh? Well, it's nice to be working with ya." She smiled and winked. "You won't be sorry you're letting me help!"

"_Watari."_ The voice said. The man sitting behind the laptop nodded and closed the computer.

"This meeting is over for today. I will be here tomorrow at the same time. Ms. Kudo, please come with me."

Artemis watched the man walk past her before nodding and turning to follow. "Bye, Chief. I'll see you later. Tell Light-kun I said hello."

The Chief nodded and gave her a wary smile. The door shut behind her and she turned towards L's assistant. "Alright, old man. Where are you taking me?" she asked walking calmly toward the exit. The man froze for a few moments before following after her.

"All that will be explained in the car." He opened the door to a shiny black car that was parked outside the front door of the police station. She slid in and was in awe. The car looked like it belonged to a rich person. "You will be staying with L. He thinks it will benefit the investigation more, plus we will be able to keep an eye on you. You do have a habit of getting yourself into tight situations."

Artemis pouted in the back seat. "Not my fault I'm so cute and innocent."

Watari laughed from the driver's seat and was quiet the rest of the way.

He pulled into a hotel parking lot and opened her door before her. She put her duffel bag strap over her shoulder and followed him into the nicest hotel she had ever seen. "This is where I'm staying?" she 

asked looking around wide eyed. Even thought her parents were famous, they didn't believe in buying expense things, so she was never really around a lot of money.

The old man didn't say a word. He just motioned for her to follow him to the elevator. Once they reached the right floor, the duo made their way down the hall. Watari stopped in front of a door and pulled a key from his pocket. He opened the door and said, "Welcome to our temporary headquarters."

On the other side of the door was a regular looking hotel room, expect for all the sweets and candy lying around. A man with messy black hair stood from a chair in front of a laptop. As he walked over, the female had time to look him over. The man had very pale skin and dark bags under his eyes, which were a light murky brown. He was wearing a long sleeved white shirt, baggy blue jeans, no shoes or socks, and stood with his shoulder slouched.

He stood before the teenage female detective for a moment before saying, "I am L."


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: I am sooooooo sorry this took so long to get out. School has been hell. I had some people ask some questions about the pairing. This is be an L story, but my friend who reads everything before I publish it wants some Light in here. But this is an L story.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note. I just own Artemis and the story line......but I think you already knew that....**

A Tale of Two Detectives [L Lawliet]

Chapter 2: Main Suspect

Artemis and L stared at each other in silence, both waiting for the other to make the first move. She slowly raised her hand to point at the man standing in front of her.

"Panda."

The famous detective blinked slowly. "Excuse me?"

A huge grin spread across the only female's face. "You look like a Panda bear!!" she said, her eyes twinkling.

"Right…" L turned and sat in front of his computer. The way he sat intrigued Artemis. He sat on the balls of his toes with his knees pulled up to his chest. His hands placed lightly on his knees.

"I would like your help on this case, but my only condition is that no one knows." He said, not taking his eyes off the screen.

"Alright. I can be sneaky." Artemis sat beside him. "So, what do you need me to do, Panda-chan?"

"I need you to gather information on all high school students that have any connection to the Japanese Police Force here in the Kanto region."

The female stared at him. "What? Why? What do kids have to do with this?"

L's eyes went back to his computer. "The times of all the deaths occurred after school hours and on weekends. Logic says that it is a student."

The teen glared at his back. "It could also be a working adult and it could be a very intelligent middle school student."

"Yes, it could be, but think about it for a moment. A middle school student or younger would be afraid of the power to kill and most likely would not use it. An adult would not be playing God to make a better world. They would use it for personal gain. Only high school students have the mind set to want to save the world from evil."

Artemis was ready to blow at this point, but she was doing a very good job keeping her anger in check. "Alright, L-sama. Whatever you say." She turned away and began walking towards the door.

"Ms. Kudo?"

She stopped with her hand clutching the doorknob, her brownish-red eyes ablaze with fury. "Yes?" she asked through gritted teeth.

"I just wanted you to know that since you have a lot of connections within the police and you are the age of a high school student, you are my number 1 suspect."

Her mind went blank for a moment. Her brain simply could not process his reasoning. The grip on the doorknob loosened.

L watched her reaction, hoping for anything he might be able to use against her if it turned out she was Kira.

A second later, Artemis realized what he had accused her of. She was beyond furious. She threw open the door and was out of the hotel in record time. She didn't look back and ran into the park. She slowed down when she heard the noise of children playing and laughing. She opened her eyes and took a deep breath. She ran a hand through her long brown hair.

'_I need to calm down. L couldn't really mean what he said. I am a respected detective almost as well known as him! He was just trying to get a reaction._'

During Arty's deep breathing exercises, something hit her foot. When she looked down, she saw a soccer ball that had rolled over to her.

"Hey! Can you throw that ball back over here?"

She looked up to see a group of kids standing in the center of a soccer field. She smiled, picked up the ball, and walked over to the group. "I noticed your teams are uneven. Mind if I join you? I need a little fun."

The children nodded. She gave them a big smile before dropping the ball and kicking the ball into the goal.

They played together for about an hour. After about the third goal, her mind began to wonder back to the strange detective and the accusation against her.

'_How can I prove to him that I am not Kira?'_ She thought to herself. She was so deep in thought that she didn't notice that one of the kids had kicked the soccer ball to hard and that it was going to smack in her in the head.

She moved her head just in time and caught the ball with her hands. The kids looked on in awe as Artemis dropped the ball and began to kick to ball up into the air to bounce it on her knees. One of the young girls in the group walked around to see her face.

The girl gaped at what she saw. "She has her eyes closed," she exclaimed.

Thought flew through the teen detective's head at the speed of light. One after the other, ideas were shot down. Nothing she thought of could have possibly prove to L that she was not Kira. The ball's speed slowly began to decrease as she opened her eyes and started muttering under her breath.

The soccer ball was finally bounced to high and smacked Artemis in the noggin. She blinked a few times before pounding her fist in her open palm. "That's it!" she shouted happily. She turned away from the group and began to run. She stopped at the entrance to the park and turned back to the kids. "Thanks for letting me play with you!" she yelled back at them with a big smile. Spinning back around, she sprinted towards the local library.

'_I can't believe I didn't think of it earlier! This has to work!'_

She ran through the door and over to the computers. She sat down and immediately began her research. She pulled up a site that had all the names of the criminals Kira murdered. As she scanned the list, she became more excited. Once she reached the end, she knew she had cleared her name. She then went to the Okinawa Police website, logging in to her case files.

After the files had printed and she had cleared all evidence of the files had been wiped from the hard-drive, Artemis headed back to the genius detective L.

'_This will make him eat his words.'_

**Thanks for reading!! :] Please review/favorite! Have a Happy Thanksgiving!!!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: I'm soooooo sorry this has taken so long. School's been keeping me busy, summer's been full of camp after camp, and parents have been keeping me pissed off. I haven't been in the mood to write lately but I am trying my best to update both stories. Thank you for being so patient with me. :]**

**I DO NOT OWN DEATH NOTE! Or maybe I do… .**

A Tale of Two Detectives [L Lawliet]

Chapter 3: Fate is on My Side for a Moment in Time

Soon after leaving the library, Artemis realized she was in an unfamiliar part of town. She paused to look around for something that might tell her where she was, but all she could see was old buildings that were getting ready to collapse and trash piled as high as her.

She shuddered. Something about this place gave her the chills. The young girl began to wander around aimlessly with her papers tucked safely into her bag. As she wandered deeper into the rotting area, the sky got darker and it became harder for her to see. Somehow, Artemis managed to stumble into an alleyway before a heavy rain began to pound at the ground.

The alley gave her little shelter from the wind and rain. The young detective sat down on the ground, helpless.

"This sucks!" She cried, sullenly. She leaned against the filthy wall behind her and began to pout. "Why do these things always happen to me?"

Lighting flashed and a loud rumble of thunder sounded. The noise seemed to echo in the deserted neighborhood. But in the light, Artemis saw someone leaning against the entrance to the alley. The figure was tall and slightly slumped over. Relief began to fill her body.

'_That's L! He actually came to find me! That's really sweet…but I'm still mad at him…'_

She shot up and began to wave in the figure's direction. "Panda-chan! I'm down here!"

The figure slowly began to walk towards her. When they had reached the halfway mark, an eerie feeling began to nag at the girl's mind. She began to notice everything about this person walking toward her. They weren't really walking, they were more like stumbling. Their hair was wild, but not in the same way as the famous L's, and the smell of alcohol was super strong. She then realized she had made a grave mistake.

Another flash of lighting and her realization was confirmed. The man heading toward her now was about in his forties or fifties with graying hair and blood-shot eyes. He was clutching something in his hand. It had given a bright gleam in the sudden flash.

Artemis backed away. "Who are you?" She asked. This was nothing like the missions she'd been on before. In those missions, she had people around every corner ready to jump in whenever she felt threatened.

She ran away from him, desperate to get back to L in one piece and clear her name. As she ran, the wind and rain picked up and stung her eyes. Blindly, Artemis felt for an open door or another alleyway, but she had hit a dead end.

Tears of fear and frustration mixed with the rain hitting her face. _'Great. Just great. I can't die like this! This isn't fair! Please someone help me!'_ she prayed.

The drunkard was now stumbling closer now. She could see the murderous glint in his eyes and the glint of the large kitchen knife in his dirty hand. She pressed herself as close to the wall as humanly possible. The man stopped walking when he was about 4 or 5 feet from her. Because of the dark shadows across his face, Artemis couldn't see the look of pain that flashed in his eyes. All she could see was that his whole body tensed and a few seconds later, he fell to the ground, cold and motionless.

She slowly slid down the wall, staring at the body lying in front of her. "He's dead." She said softly.

She sat there in the rain in silence. "I was saved…my guardian angel must be close by…"

_~…Artemis~_ She raised her head slightly. '_Did someone just call me?'_

"Ms. Kudo? Ms. Kudo, are you there?" a voice called out to her. The voice she had hated only a few minutes ago was calling out to her.

She hastily got up and ran in his direction. Not once did she look back. She soon saw the figure of L walking in front of the alley she had been sitting in not that long ago. "Panda-chan!!!"

L turned just in time to catch the sobbing teen in his arms. He had never been that close to another person before, so the man had no idea how to comfort her. So he did the first thing that came to mind. First, he patted her very awkwardly on the shoulder. Then he asked, "What happened?"

Artemis didn't even hear his question. She just kept sobbing and mumbling the same phrase over and over again. The famous detective was starting to worry…only slightly of course. He gently pushed her away to look at her face. "What happened?" he asked again.

She looked up at him. "He's dead…he just fell over. He was going to kill me, and then he just died." The tears were slowing down. She was safe now, so she didn't need to be afraid.

"Who's dead?" L raised one eyebrow.

She paused and looked down. "I don't know."

He sighed softly and began to walk away.

"L? Where are you going?" she asked in a whisper. For some reason, seeing him with his back to her and walking away hurt her deeply. The sight brought back memories that the teen had tried so hard to erase.

"We are going home." He answered simply without looking back.

The answer shocked her. "We? I thought I was a suspect in your case?"

"I will explain as soon as we get back to the hotel."

Arty smiled and walked after him. After a few minutes of riding the car, the group found themselves back in front of the snazzy hotel. Before the world famous detective would even begin talking about the developments in her case, he insisted that she have a shower and something to eat. After that, and only after that, would he tell what he had discovered.

Once she was in clean, dry clothes and had more than enough food in her tummy, she turned to L with a serious face.

"Why are you being nicer to me? I thought I was your prime suspect of being Kira."

L just sat there in his strange way eating a piece of strawberry shortcake. It was really starting to annoy the poor teen.

After the piece of cake was gone, the other detective finally started explaining. "After you left here this afternoon, I realized I had no concrete evidence against you, so I hacked into your files in the Okinawa police database. After reading about all of your previous cases, I discovered that none of the criminals you caught have been killed by Kira. None of their personal information was given to the public making you and the officers who worked with you the only people with the knowledge of their crimes. Most of these criminals tried to hurt you and many times at that, so if you were Kira, they would most likely be dead already. The second reason I don't think you're Kira anymore is based on your actions just a few minutes ago."

Arty just sat watching him in disbelief.

"You were attacked by a very dangerous man who was set on killing you. And yet, you cried so hard because he had died. Seeing him like that truly scared you. There is no way you could be Kira, if you can't handle death at all." L finished. He watched his new ward with amusement. She hadn't moved or even blinked throughout his entire speech. Something told him, she was getting ready to burst.

Artemis gave a violent twitch before unleashing her wrath on the poor man.

"WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!" she screamed. "DO YOU MEAN THAT I WENT THROUGH ALL OF THIS JUST TO GIVE YOU THE SAME PROOF THAT YOU GOT ON YOUR OWN?!?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME???"

L was speechless. He had a feeling that if he even opened his mouth, she would attack him. He watched her carefully as she stood up gripping a pillow. "What are you doing, Ms. Kudo?"

A sly grin stretched across her face. "Nothing…"

Artemis charged at the poor detective and began beating him with the pillow.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The shinigami realm, there are rules that should never be broken. One of the most important rules is: never kill to save. In other words, it is forbidden to kill a human in order to save a human. Most shinigami find this rule unnecessary seeing as they are normally very selfish beings, but there are a few that spend too much time watching the human world and end up "falling in love".

Hajime always seemed to be different than his fellow shinigami. He found the human way of life very interesting and took it upon himself to watch it daily. That was, until she was born. She had captured his attention with her first cry.

He thought that she was just a ordinary human baby, but he found himself watching her every moment of every day. He remembered her first word, her first steps, and her first tooth. He was envious of the parents. They got to actually hold the small, delicate, innocent child in their arms, while he had to watch from another world.

As the girl grew older, she only grew in beauty. Her parents left her alone most of the time now. They were famous, so they were always busy. He could see she was lonely, yet he could do nothing. Her only brother left her as well, to pursue his own dream (whatever it was; Hajime never really paid attention to any others).

He counted off the years. She was 16 now. She was even more beautiful now than ever. She had left her home to travel another region of her country to help someone. He really didn't care about details. All he cared about was the rapidly declining numbers above her head.

Hajime began to walk in circles; deep in thought. She was going to die soon. She was too young for it though. He wouldn't allow it.

He glanced back at his eye into her life. She was running in the rain now; the numbers lower than ever. He then noticed the dark figure walking closer to her fragile form.

The numbers were almost to zero. The man was carrying a knife. He was planning on ending the wonderful girl's life. Hajime became filled with rage. He would not even allow him to touch her. He swiftly picked up his Death Note and wrote the name of the evil man in it.

The man clutched his chest and died almost instantly. With that life taken, he felt his own slipping away. The numbers above Her head were higher now, that he was happy about.

"I love you…..Artemis." He whispered to himself.

He saw her head lift up slightly. "Thank you, Guardian Angel…for saving me." She said to the wind.

Then she got up and ran into the arms of the strange man that had sent her to her death. She ran to him for comfort.

Sadly, that was the last thing Hajime every saw.

**Thank again for reading and for being so patient with me. I'll get started on the next chapter tonight.**

**Special thanks to ****L Lawliet 4eva**** for messaging me. If not for that, this chapter would have been out later in the week. :]**

**Review and Favorite please!!**


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